Rain In Space
by Apathyisdeath
Summary: Shepard would give life, merge life, if it meant they could all live. If he could live, and not stare out at her with dead, unloving eyes. That was selfish, she understood that. "Take care of yourself, Kaidan. I hope you don't try to follow me." Shenko.


_A/N: It's been a while since I wrote anything Mass Effect related, but I wanted to throw in my tuppence worth on those depressing endings. A game that makes me sob like that needs a follow up. This isn't exactly resolving or changing the ending, but it sort of extends the epilogue of the Normandy crashing of that tropical planet without Shepard, if you like. Even though I destroyed the Reapers, I decided to write something for the Synthesis ending with my Earthborn/Sole Survivor (yikes angst) Shep. I might continue this in a separate fic with Shepard surviving, tell me what you think about that if ya like!_

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><p>The now-familiar sensation of her drying blood on her palms and under her fingernails did nothing to distract her from her mission. Shepard at least had imagined herself to be trembling upon destroying the reapers, of being incapable of clutching the weapon that she would use in firing that final shot that sent them into nothingness.<p>

If she had been giddy enough from the adrenaline and exhaustion, Shepard would pause to admire the fight overhead. The differing colors of the ammo lights as they rebounded off the impenetrable hull of a Reaper were hypnotizing. If she had been anymore lightheaded she would have sworn it was raining in space. She limped onwards regardless and underneath true danger, her throat scratched and raw to match the other parts of her. _You must choose_, that _thing _had said. What was it she had been saying this whole time? Just a soldier. Let someone else be on the poster. She could repeat it all she liked, they would never listen.

She knew what she must do, even as she began to feel her life slipping from her fingers as she limped towards the glowing power conduit. The child she had been chasing, or some form of it, watched her approach, its eerie features indifferent. Shepard raised the gun to the exposed part of the conduit, cocking it as she attempted to urge her finger to pull the trigger.

Recently overused words like "_Prothean" _and "C_rucible" _and "_Catalyst"_ were tired on her tongue and in her mind. She tried to ignore them as they burned trails through her head.

She couldn't do it. Images she had not allowed herself to believe or access rested now in the forefront of her mind. The most prominent one of actually dying of old age was one that she had begun to not only believe recently, but cherish. That was beginning to seem like a moot point, now.

Lesser-known wishes slipped from her as she stood there, an odd caricature of herself. Knowing how she would begrudgingly spoil grandchildren, children, blaming Kaidan for all the pain of childbearing, naïve montages of playful arguments, and, then, not being even able to remember what it was like to belong to an Earth gang. Especially not as a female member. She would shudder if her body would allowed her the strength.

Shepard let her arm fall back to her side. Who was she to decide this? A few years ago, she would have happily destroyed the geth in order to destroy the Reapers. Yet after taking time to understand them and even form something near to a friendship with one of them, that sounded like a horrible act of genocide. The imagined look on Joker's face as he would realize that he had lost EDI so soon after finding her crushed Shepard. Damn, she was a fool.

But who was she to destroy the lives of those she loved? They would live, but without the mass relays and without EDI. What was she even fighting for anymore?

Shepard attempted to straighten her shoulders, a difficult gesture when one is attempting to hold their guts in manually. She painstakingly turned herself around to limp towards the middle, to the pillar of light.

She tried to ignore her perception of merging synthetic and organic life. In any other context, it would be near-comical to see the ones she loved devoid of emotion and love in its sheer unlikelihood. Thinking of Kaidan as turning to look at her with the dead and emotionless eyes of...something terrified her, but it was better than those eyes being dead, blank and unseeing. That was selfish, Shepard understood that.

She would do this, do it for them. Losing her life had been something that she had recently thought a lot on, and she would not hesitate to do so in the grand scheme of things. Kaidan's words on the hospital entered her mind; _people near death say their lives flash before their eyes..the future flashed for me: the anguish, the families, the children._ She wouldn't experience her own of those anymore- perhaps he would, without her. Shepard gritted her teeth as she let herself fall into the light.

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><p>Kaidan thought that Joker took them landing on a tropical planet with no means as to repair the ship pretty well. He had momentarily looked out to see that they had crash-landed safely, the odd couple of Joker and EDI staring out at the landscape as if merely on shore leave.<p>

Kaidan traced back inside the ship, walking against all those leaving it. He could feel his legs tremble as he ascended to her cabin. The grief hit him suddenly. She wasn't returning. From what they had witnessed as they fled it had been obvious. He couldn't have told Joker to halt and wait for her, it would have been useless and would only have killed them all. But still, he felt guilty.

The door to the cabin was heavy as he attempted to roll it to the side. Many of the thick cables that had hung from the cabin's ceiling hung, spitting dying sparks as they detached. Lights still flickered, not yet fully gone in their strength.

The cabin itself felt dead, no longer of the top-of-the-range technology and devices that responded to the smallest movement, but of barely-buzzing artificial materials passed their usefulness.

He surveyed the room, not being able to stop the memories of their second and, now it seemed, last night together. Ilos had been cautious and terrifying, unsure of their future. The night before landing on the Illusive Man's base had been sure, set in stone; only a sample of what they had to look forward to. There had been no need to rush.

She couldn't really be gone, he thought. She was _the _Commander Shepard. A Reaper had fallen on the woman and she had limped out, smiling. But, there was only so much one could suffer through, physically and mentally.

Something crackling with activity interrupted his train of thought. It was a cheap hologram-projecting vid recorder, the gift of many last-minute birthday presents from forgetful friends or family members. They were notorious in their low price and wide availability on the cheaper market stall gift shops.

But it was her, Shepard. She was sat in the bathroom in this very cabin, her usually tied-back hair released and about her shoulders. Even though the device only captured her from the shoulders up, it was obvious that she was not dressed fully. The bareness of her skin and the disheveled nature of her hair brought back warm memories.

_Oh_, he realized. _It must be from that night_.

"Kaidan," Shepard began. He listened intently, brain presenting possible sentences she would say. Some were short and loving, others were angry regarding the likes of Horizon. One or two even said that she would make some promise to come back to him, as if it was that simple. "Hi."

Kaidan's throat was too dry. He heaved in a shuddering breath as he placed himself in her old chair. She looked beautiful to him, a glorious rumpled mess of everything that she was. Imperfect yet powerful and admirable to the point of astonishment. Well, in him, at least.

She was sitting in that awkward way she always did, one that was not at all flattering yet seemed comfortable. It made him smile regardless. She ran a hand through her short hair.

"I can't believe I'm recording this with you in the next room, it seems like I'm cheating in some way." She tried to laugh at that. Kaidan watched her throat move and she attempted to swallow the lump in her throat.

"I can't believe I'm sitting on the toilet as I record this, either." Her expression slackened as she ceased in attempting to lighten the mood. "But, I need to say this, and I'm afraid I'm not brave enough to say this to you now. I don't want to...disappoint you." Shepard smiled at where she assumed he would be.

"You, Kaidan, of all people know that I'm gonna do all I can to end this, once and for all. You know the specifics and, honestly, I'm sick of repeating them now." He watched her eyes fall to the floor. "Sick of giving speeches, now."

He wanted to comfort her, tell her it was OK. She had succeeded and they were alive. His disappointment in her was an impossible concept. She would be as alive as she was in this hologram. As alive as she had been with him a few nights prior.

"I don't expect to come out of this alive." Shepard said, bringing her eyes back to look out at him. "I don't expect to have what I want. I never have and I realize now that I never really will. I sorta feel like sometimes the universe just doesn't want to give me what I want."

Kaidan watched the woman sniff in an odd sort of laughter. "But then I realize, after all it's done to me, the universe gave me you. It let me be with you and, somehow, you loved me. I guess I owe it for that one, don't I?"

Kaidan would scoff at her if she had said this to him in person. She was not the lucky one. He had said to her that he was the luckiest man alive and had fully meant it. He watched Shepard open her mouth as she attempted to find the words for what she was about to say.

"I would love an early retirement right about now, but someone's got to kick the Reapers where it hurts. Even if they don't live to tell the tale." Shepard sighed heavily before straightening herself up from her awkward seating position. Some strange grin lit her face as she laughed out at him. "You had no idea what was in store for you. I was gonna drag you to get married some day, maybe some kids and live on some colony on the ass-end of nowhere. I wanted to be able to give my child the life and family I never had. Make it hate its overbearing mom by the time it was sixteen."

She wiped at her face as she forced out a laugh. Kaidan narrowed his eyes in what threatened to be his own tears. Shepard never cried. He leaned an arm on the desk to support his head as he watched her.

"But I'm just being a complete idiot now." She chuckled shakily, her tears flowing thick and fast as she dabbed at them with her bare arms. "Look at me, I'm some savior of the galaxy."

She exhaled deeply as she stopped crying. "I'm more the fool for actually beginning to believe that these things would happen, you know? At the start of all this, back with Saren, I never even contemplated that I would find someone like you to be with, or even a family of my own. I let my guard down after Mars when you let me back into your life and I think it scared me how much I wanted all of that."  
>"Now it terrifies me how much this idea of our future, future that other people expect without expecting to have to fight tooth and nail and sacrifice their lives for, is something that I can't have. That the universe won't just...allow me to have. And that pisses me off." Shepard shook her head, her tears silent as one or two fell.<p>

"I hope you find yourself who inspires all of that in you. I'm pretty sure I did for you. If you find her again, you go for it. I know you will." She quickly dabbed at her tears, trembling less.

"Thank you for everything, Kaidan. I've been a fool, said stupid things like '_You're a sweetheart, Kaidan' _and '_It's been a long time, Kaidan'_," she mocked her own voice in a high-pitched one, scowling at the memory. "At times when stupid me should have said something meaningful that would have allowed us more time together. I'm sorry for that Kaidan. It's another thing that's my fault, I guess."  
>"I love you, Kaidan. You know that by now, I hope." She returned to her awkward slouching sitting, her face fractionally nearer the device. "And I've loved you through all these years, too. Through everything. My past history with men was never great, but you...changed that for me. I never experienced someone, nevermind a man, who was like this to me. Take care of yourself, Kaidan. I hope you don't try to follow me, you deserve to live a normal life. I love you."<p>

The device flickered off, leaving him fully alone. One or two of the flickering lights by the bed had finally closed off. Now, only the half of the room he was in was partially lit.

"Shepard..." His dry lips closed as quickly as they had parted.

Kaidan jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He was too emotionally exhausted to be shocked to feel disappointment when he saw it was Joker. He looked grim, no longer grinning at the sunset.

Kaidan did not shrug away from him, his presence making him realize that he had begun to cry.

"She's gone." Kaidan breathed through his tears. "We're never gonna see her again."


End file.
